Cultural and Linguistic Diversity Representation in School Psychology Intervention Research

An understanding of the current intervention research is critical to the adoption of evidence-based practices in the delivery of psychological services; however, the generalizability and utility of intervention research for culturally and linguistically diverse youth may be limited by the types of research samples utilized. This study addresses this topic, as it represents a content analysis of research published in school psychology journals from 2005 to 2012. A search of articles from School Psychology Review, School Psychology Quarterly, Journal of School Psychology, Psychology in the Schools, and Journal of Applied School Psychology yielded 1,543 articles, of which 170 were intervention research articles that included children—from early childhood through high school—as target samples. Analyses of these articles focused on the representation of the diversity (e.g., racial/ethnic group membership, socioeconomic status, and English language learner status) in the intervention samples. Moreover, studies were coded to determine whether comparisons were made across students of different group statuses within the different categories of diversity. Overall results suggest low representation of some diverse groups, as well as minimal comparisons between students of different diversity groups. Implications for practice, research, and training are discussed.